Travel Hack: How To Use Your Wireless Headphones to Watch In-Flight Movies

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In 2022, I first wrote about this travel hack, and it was well-received by the vast majority of my readers. I recently came across an update in tech expert Rich DeMuro’s excellent newsletter, where he highlighted the 2.0 version of the AirFly. Here’s what Rich had to say in his Gadget of the Week column:

“Frequent fliers swear by the AirFly, and now there’s a new and improved version: the AirFly Pro 2. It’s a small $60 dongle that lets you connect your Bluetooth headphones to the seat-back entertainment system. You just plug the AirFly into the headphone jack on the seat-back screen, and it transmits the audio via Bluetooth to your preferred (hopefully noise-cancelling) earbuds or headphones. Yes, more planes are adding direct Bluetooth support—but the rollout is slow.”

Rich is right. As he points out, the updated version offers much better sound and has faster pairing, extended battery life (up to 25 hours), physical volume controls and you can also “use it to convert old-school devices with a 3.5mm headphone jack—like an old iPod, car stereo, or gym machine—into a wireless Bluetooth source.“

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Here’s my original post about the AirFly: If you enjoy watching in-flight movies when you fly but prefer to use your AirPods, then you’ll love this cool product. AirFly is a small family-owned in Charleston, South Carolina that has created a wireless transmitter that lets you use wireless/noise-cancelling headphones or AirPods on airplanes (or in gyms) by connecting them to wired headphone jacks using Bluetooth technology. 

“AirFly allows users to never use those annoying cords as you can wirelessly transmit audio from in-flight entertainment, gym equipment, gaming devices, TV’s or any 3.5mm audio jack. Use your AirPods, earbuds or wireless headphones anywhere with no more cords in the way. Now you don’t have to sacrifice audio quality/comfort in flight.”

Even if you’re flying business class, the headsets the airlines give you are usually not comfortable, dirty and don’t have the best sound quality. And if you’re flying coach, don’t even bother taking the free, cheaply made plastic headsets the flight attendants pass out. I think a lot of people just take them because they’re free – it’s a total waste.

AirFly Pro has a 33-foot (10 meter) reach so you can relax with plenty of space to enjoy your content. Use AirFly Pro where there is no Bluetooth available to allow items such as wired speakers/soundbars, rental cars, and boat sound systems to wirelessly receive audio from gaming devices, phones or tablets. AirFly Pro has a battery life of 16+ hours to cover even the longest flight. If you forget to charge before takeoff, AirFly Pro can be used while charging with the included cable.

You can also use them as a splitter on your iPad if you want to watch a movie together with your traveling companion. Buy AirFly Pro on Amazon (now you would want to get AirFly Pro 2) or direct from TwelveSouth.

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